Presence
by lovablegeek
Summary: [PostRENT] When you're down to crying over tea, you shouldn't be left alone – fortunately, Collins isn't going to let that happen. MarkCollins [One shot]


Mark didn't cry at Roger's funeral. Something made him feel that he _should_ cry, ought to cry – his closest friend, who'd known everything about him, who'd always been there, maybe quiet or brooding or obnoxious or a pain in the ass but there nonetheless, who for so long had been everything to him... He was gone now. He was cold, and pale, the life and fire all gone out of him, and Mark knew he ought to cry but where there should be tears there was only raw aching emptiness, and before long a sort of numbness. He wouldn't cry, wouldn't feel it, and it wouldn't hurt anymore, that he was going home to an empty loft, that there would never again be Roger's teasing smile, or that cocky smirk, or guitar chords drifting through the loft or just the comfort of his presence, warm and vibrant and passionate...

He didn't cry, but something in his chest ached and his throat clenched so he couldn't get any words out, and he could only curl into himself on the edge of the pew, watching as images of Roger flickered across a screen at the front of the church, images he'd recorded a long time ago, and wait for this to end, wait for him to be able to go home and just not think, not feel, not _exist_. When the service finally drew to a close, Mark was the first to leave, and the same part of him that told him he should be crying told him that it wasn't right, that he shouldn't be in such a hurry to leave, but he couldn't listen to that part of him now, because he couldn't stand to be here any longer, couldn't stare at the coffin and think that the only thing left of Roger was in there, and that wasn't even Roger anyway, just a shell. He pulled on his coat and rushed for the door, hunching his shoulders against the cold as he stepped outside.

November chill hit him like a blow to the chest, stole the breath from him, but he simply swallowed hard, ducked his head, and hurried off before any of the others could catch him and offer sympathy, condolences, whatever the hell else. He couldn't hear it, couldn't deal with it no matter how sincere, and so by the time anyone else had even left the church he was gone, hurrying down the street, focusing on each breath as the cold air stung his throat and lungs, because at least the pain of it gave him something to focus on, something that wasn't about Roger and his absence now.

He didn't notice the sound of hurried footsteps behind him at first, and only when they were almost right behind him did he blink and spin around to see Collins running up to him, slowing as he got close. Automatically, Mark sighed and said softly, "I'm fine, Collins, I really don't need to talk or anything, I just want to go home now and..." _Curl up and die somewhere quiet. _Not that he'd say as much to Collins, but it was the only option that particularly appealed to Mark at that moment.

"You can't go home alone," Collins told him gently and reached out to put a hand on Mark's shoulder. Mark fought the sudden, inexplicable compulsion to flinch away from him, though he did tense automatically and wasn't sure why. He gave Collins a tight smile that fell flat, the expression in his eyes too shattered for any smile to look genuine.

"Why not? I'm going to be alone anyway." He hadn't meant that to come out quite as bitter as it sounded. He bit his lip and tried amending quietly, "I mean... I'm fine. It's not important or anything, and while I appreciate it, I really don't need anyone with me tonight." Having someone there would make it that much harder, somehow, that much more painful because it _wasn't _Roger. Collins nodded, and Mark turned to walk away, only to stop and turn back to him as he realized that Collins was still following him.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going home with you," Collins answered simply, and Mark could only stare at him for a second or two before shaking his head, too tired to argue with him. He didn't even say anything, just hunched his shoulders and kept walking, Collins a step or two behind him. Neither of them spoke on the way home, and Mark couldn't help but be silently grateful for that – not talking meant that he could forget, a little, focus on some small details of the city around him to the exclusion of everything else, thought, emotion, loneliness...

His ability to manage that stopped abruptly as soon as they reached home, as soon as they started up the stairs. Some part of him half expected Roger to be waiting up there in the loft, to be playing his guitar and look up at him as he walked in with that particular look of uniquely Rogerish welcome and mischievousness and warmth. But no. Mark shoved open the door and there was no Roger sprawled on the couch with his guitar, just emptiness and silence and the guitar in its case over in the corner, untouched the past month or so, from around the time Roger had really started to fade away.

He gave the guitar case only a momentary glance, and then resolutely looked away from it, walking across the room to throw open a few cabinets in the kitchen and search for tea, hot chocolate mix or something, just to give himself something to do for the moment. There was no need to shove the cabinet doors open so hard, so that they banged back loudly against the wood of the other cabinets, shaking a little on their hinges, except that Roger had used to do it, and the sound of it filled the silence. Mark shoved aside a few boxes in the cabinets, still searching, and growled when he remembered they were out of tea, and had been for the past three days. He slammed the cabinet door shut again, jumping a little when the sound echoed like a gunshot in the empty loft.

"I can't do this," he murmured, mostly to himself, as he turned away to walk back to the couch, having almost forgotten Collins' presence altogether. "Roger's gone and it's too fucking quiet here and we're out of tea." He all but collapsed onto the couch, his eyes suddenly welling with tears, and he couldn't help but wonder how the hell it was that the tea was the last straw, the goddamn tea was the thing that pushed him over the edge. It didn't make sense, but then again, nothing in his life ever did, so there he sat on the couch in his too-empty loft, slumped forward with his arms resting on his thighs, head down, shoulders shaking with silent, choked back tears, crying not over his best friend, but over the lack of fucking tea. No, it didn't make any sense.

Mark didn't look up when Collins sat beside him, nor when he put an arm around his shoulders, completely wordless, just a wordless, comforting presence. A needed presence, whether Mark wanted to admit it or not. He sat there for a moment, shaking and watching in a sort of detached fascination as a tear fell to land on his hand and ran down to soak into the leg of his pants, and wondering how he could feel so numb while at the same time so _raw_, so aching and empty, and hating himself for actually crying when he hadn't really cried in years, not for Mimi, not for April or Angel...

Neither of them moved for a long time, Mark still bent forward, still shaking and trying to stop crying, Collins with one arm around him, until finally Mark managed to regain control, sniffling quietly and rubbing at his eyes with the back of one hand. Collins didn't ask if he was okay, which Mark was thankful for – he probably knew it was a stupid question. Mark just rested his forehead in his hands, eyes closed. His head throbbed, face flushed and eyes reddened. His chest hurt, lungs burned, and he couldn't decide if that was better or worse than the numbness he'd felt before.

"So what did it?" Collins asked softly, his voice gentle.

Mark lifted his head to blink at him through bleary, watery eyes. "What?"

Collins responded with a faint, barely there smile. "What tiny, insignificant thing finally pushed you over the edge?"

For a moment, Mark sat there, shaking a little, searching for an explanation that didn't sound stupid, and finally said in a trembling voice, "We're out of tea." Saying it out loud, it sounded so ridiculous he couldn't help but break into slightly hysterical laughter that sounded almost exactly the same as the crying. He sat up a little, only to turn and wrap his arms around Collins, bury his face in his chest, not even sure whether he was laughing or crying anymore.

"How'd you know?" he asked softly, at length. "That it was something stupid like that?"

He felt Collins' chest move a little, he assumed in a sort of shrug, and Collins' voice was a sort of deep, warm rumble with Mark's ear against his chest, oddly comforting. "Because I know you, Mark. It would be something like that." After a pause, he asked softly, "Do you want me to get you some tea?"

Mark chuckled weakly and shook his head, one hand clutching unconsciously at Collins' shirt. "No. I don't really_ want _tea, it's just...I..." The words wouldn't come, no explanation that would make any sense to him or anyone else. He decided to concentrate on just breathing for a while. Inhale, exhale, and while he didn't quite calm down, his breathing slowed a little, became less ragged.

"I know," Collins told him, quiet and gentle, and his hand moved up Mark's back to the nape of his neck, strong fingers massaging the knotted muscles there. Mark relaxed, imperceptibly at first and then leaning slightly into Collins' hand, eyes closed. A bit of the tension drained out of him, enough that he could pull together some sense of stability.

"Was it like this for you?" he asked tentatively after a while. "When Angel died?"

Collins didn't answer for a while, and Mark started to wonder if he'd overstepped his bounds, said something he shouldn't have, but eventually Collins answered calmly, "Yeah, something like this. Although, you know, I wasn't crying over tea or anything."

Mark managed a bit of a smile, fell silent for a moment or two, and then awkwardly lifted his head and pulled away from Collins. Collins hesitated for a moment, momentarily tightening his arms around him before releasing him, and Mark shifted across the couch a bit, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. "Sorry," he mumbled softly. "Didn't mean to-"

"Stop," Collins interrupted, before he could get out a full apology. "You're allowed to cry, Mark. There's nothing wrong with that."

Mark shook his head slowly, most of his emotions shoved back and walled off after that one brief outburst. "It's okay, I'm– I'm fine, I swear." He was always fine, wasn't he? Human fucking tupperware, and he'd hold together through everything while everyone else fell apart – that was his job, that was what he _did_, what everyone expected of him, what he expected of himself, and–

"Mark?"

He looked over to Collins hesitantly, eyebrows raised, his expression forced calm that contrasted with his reddened eyes and the tears that still clung to his cheeks. "Yeah?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

Mark forced a bit of a smile, reaching up to scrub at his face with one hand and try to make the fact that he'd been crying not quite so obvious. "Yeah, I know. I think you've already told me you were going to spend the night. You can, um, take my bed and I'll stay in Roger's tonight..." Not that Roger had been staying in his own bed much lately, in the past several months had been in Mark's bed more often than not, Mark curled around him protectively, and he had to close his eyes as that image jumped to the forefront of his mind. Maybe he would be better off not sleeping in his own bed at all for a while, until he could manage it without feeling Roger's absence so acutely...

"No, Mark," Collins said again, firmly, in that _you're not getting it _tone, moving across the couch to sit right next to Mark and grabbing his shoulder to make him turn and face him. "I'm not _going _anywhere."

He caught Mark's eyes, forced him to really see his expression instead of just turning away and walling off and retreating into himself, and something there caught him off guard, the intensity, the sincerity. "Oh," Mark said softly, just a bit taken aback. "I didn't know that you..." He trailed off and shook his head, breaking eye contact with Collins. "You don't have to stay with me just because. I'll be okay on my own."

"I know I don't have to. I want to."

Mark was still for a moment, lifting his head to look up into Collins' eyes, so close to Collins, his hand still on Mark's shoulder, close enough that he could feel the warmth of his body and a different kind of warmth altogether Mark hadn't thought would be there ever again once Roger was gone. That moment passed, and he fell against Collins, throwing his arms around him once more, warmth against the cold, someone there, a welcome, needed presence against the loneliness and emptiness, and one thought running through Mark's mind, _Stay with me, don't go anywhere, don't leave me alone, _and Collins arms around him, his gentle kiss against Mark's forehead saying one thing in response: _I won't. I'm here. I'm staying._


End file.
